Goldberg says apartheid is ‘provisional’ — nine years after he called it ‘temporary’

Let’s hear from three pro-Israel voices about whether there’s apartheid in the West Bank.

Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni is being assailed for legitimizing harsh criticisms of Israel by using the A-word. Livni is actually the latest Israeli politician to warn that Israel faces an apartheid future. +972 picks up the Jerusalem Post:

“[T] the time has come for [young people who worry about energy policy] to ask, to what kind of state do they want to leave the gas reserves? To a Jewish democratic Israel? Or to a binational Arab state? Or to an apartheid state? It is impossible to deal with economic issues and to ignore the important diplomatic issues related to two states for two peoples.”

A de-facto apartheid already exists in the West Bank. Inside the borders of Israel proper, Arabs and Jews are judged by the same set of laws in the same courtrooms; across the Green Line, Jews live under Israeli civil law as well, but their Arab neighbors-people who live, in some cases, just yards away-fall under a different, and substantially undemocratic, set of laws, administered by the Israeli Army. The system is neither as elaborate nor as pervasive as South African apartheid, and it is, officially, temporary. It is nevertheless a form of apartheid, because two different ethnic groups living in the same territory are judged by two separate sets of laws.

Over the weekend at Aspen, Goldberg told Ahmed Shihab-Eldin of Huffpo that it’s still temporarily apartheid:

In the West Bank it’s provisionally apartheid. I don’t disagree with you on that… Why begins the smell of apartheid– is the following. You have a city like Hebron… And you have Jewish settlers in there who live on a certain block, right… who vote in Israel… You have Arabs who live literally next door… and they live under military occupation, and they don’t get to choose their leaders. And so if you make that kind of situation permanent– it’s all provisional now, because the status of the West Bank has not been decided right… And this is the choice obviously facing Israel… If you decide that this… is the permanent arrangement and these Arabs are always going to be under your control, that they’re not going to have the vote, then you got to call it what it is. I mean Jim Crow, you call it Apartheid, whatever, but my hope obviously is… that it’s not too late, and since the status of the West Bank is actually not settled, that Israel will pull itself back from that precipice.

Gross: Let’s start with the title. The title is already getting you in trouble with a lot of people. The title is Palestine: Peace not Apartheid. That’s a very provocative title. Why not call it something neutral like “The Neverending Middle East Crisis, What Each Side Needs to Do.” Did you want to be deliberately provocative with this title?

Carter: Well, when you write your book about the Middle East, you can use that….

Gross: Yeah. I’m working on that now. (laughing)

[Carter then explains that within the occupied territories there is an element of apartheid. “Deep within the West Bank there has been developed a system of apartheid that in many ways is more oppressive than was the system of apartheid in South Africa… The highways are prohibited to be used by Palestinians… [And in Gaza] There couldn’t be a worse case of apartness or apartheid anywhere in the world.”]

Gross: Are you afraid that by using the word apartheid in the title, that you lose a lot of Israelis and Israel supporters just in the title. I’ll read you a couple of quotes here. [She reads from House speaker Nancy Pelosi:] “It is wrong to suggest that the Jewish people would support a government in Israel or anywhere else that institutionalizes ethnically based oppression, and Democrats reject that allegation vigorously.” And [Congressman] John Conyers says the use of the word apartheid in the title “against the Jewish people in particular, who have been the victims of the worst discrimination – resulting in death, is offensive and wrong.” So are you concerned that even though you think Israel’s practices are a practice of apartness, that by using the word apartheid you risk alienating just the people who you want to convince?

Carter: What I wanted to do is express a fact that is almost completely avoided and not expressed in the United States but is well-known throughout the rest of the world…. I realized that when I chose this title that it would be provocative [and Carter said he hoped it would spur folks] to find out the facts, none of which have been disputed.

Gross: Alan Dershowitz the lawyer wrote an op-ed about your book and he calls your book one-sided. [Gross reads a Dershowitz quote] “Nor does he explain that Israel’s motivation for holding on to land it captured in a defensive war is the prevention of terrorism. Israel has tried, on several occasions, to exchange land for peace, and what it got instead was terrorism, rockets, and kidnappings launched from the returned land.” So what’s your reaction to Dershowitz’s criticism, that the book is one-sided, you’re not criticizing the Palestinians and you’re not explaining that Israel’s policies are reactions to terrorism?

cross the Green Line and you will see so many of the accoutrements that the South Africans placed to control their — what they believed to be their hostile population. Roads for whites only. Roads controlled at every pass. Roads controlled by fences and guards

And Stephen Robert’s statement in the Nation: “Apartheid on Steroids.” Shouldn’t Terry Gross amend her remarks?

45 Responses

“[T] the time has come for [young people who worry about energy policy] to ask, to what kind of state do they want to leave the gas reserves? To a Jewish democratic Israel? Or to a binational Arab state? Or to an apartheid state? It is impossible to deal with economic issues and to ignore the important diplomatic issues related to two states for two peoples.”

Livni is a Zionist… par excellence .

No Jew in Government (and remember there have been only Jews calling the shots in Israel since 1948) ever tried to stop YESHA.
The whirlwind is ripening.

“Livni is recorded confirming what Palestinians have always accused Israeli governments of doing: creating facts on the ground to prevent the possibility of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.”

When Mr Erekat asked Ms Livni: “Short of your jet fighters in my sky and your army on my territory, can I choose where I secure external defence?”. She replied:

“No. In order to create your state you have to agree in advance with Israel – you have to choose not to have the right of choice afterwards. These are the basic pillars.”
“Israel takes more land [so] that the Palestinian state will be impossible . . . the Israel policy is to take more and more land day after day and that at the end of the day we’ll say that is impossible, we already have the land and we cannot create the state”.

She conceded that it had been “the policy of the government for a really long time”.

It’s particularly (Marc) rich of her to accuse Netanyahu of bringing on the apocalypse.

There are plenty of Israelis who give “a shit” not only about the way the rest of the world views “its treatment of Palestinians.” They care, and work against, and sometimes go to jail in efforts to curb the craven treatment of Palestinian human beings. Yesh Gavul, Yesh Din, BTselem, Machsom Watch, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. I could go on and on. The voices of that community of conscience are as suppressed as the voices of non-zionist/anti-zionist Americans. They are our brothers and sisters in the march toward justice and humanity and should not be ignored or dismissed.

Gross’ Zionist pride soured me on her show a long time ago. When I hear a friend or family member speak of her or her show in glowing terms I explain why I no longer listen to her. I don’t believe I’ve convinced anyone to stop listening to her show but I hope at least that they’ll be listening with a more critical ear when her subject is I/P and her bias is on parade.

Apartheid IS provisional for a Goldberg or Netanyahu – provisional until enough Palestinians have died or have been ethnically cleansed where it is finally demographically safe enough to relax it’s Apartheid grip

Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni is being assailed for legitimizing harsh criticisms of Israel by using the A-word.

It is not without irony that Livni is also infamous for trying to transfer large numbers of Israeli Arabs to the jurisdiction of the Palestine Authority, while claiming that the creation of a Palestinian state would serve as a solution to the national aspirations of Israel’s Arab citizens. Ethnic segregation into two homelands, separated by international frontiers (i.e. Grand Apartheid) is her chosen path to a so-called democratic nation of Israel. In other words, she simply prefers one type of apartheid over another. See for example:
Expelling Israel’s Arab population? Israeli negotiators, including Tzipi Livni, proposed “swapping” some of Israel’s Arab villages into a Palestinian state.
— link to aljazeera.com
Livni: National aspirations of Israel’s Arabs can be met by Palestinian homelandlink to haaretz.com

When the International Court of Justice began conducting the hearings in the Namibia case, there was no general prohibition of apartheid in international law. The treaties on apartheid, racial discrimination, and human rights had either not entered into force yet, or had only been ratified by a tiny minority of UN member states.

The Court nonetheless advised that apartheid violated international law reflected in the UN Charter obligation of all member states to promote equal rights and self-determination of peoples. Livni still isn’t promoting equal rights for “Arabs” living in Israel. She intends to achieve “democracy” by other means.

Many Black South Africans who have visited the area and studied the facts have come out and said that this is not apartheid. Others have said the opposite. The situation is complex and whatever it is, it is not apartheid. The Palestinians are not this innocent group of people who have sat back idly and had their rights trodden upon for no fault of their own. The opposite is true.They have been directly involved in all of the major events that have shaped the region and have contributed directly to the current impasse as they continue to ignore what it will really take for a safe and secure Israel and future for the Jewish people.

They had their rights taken away and it is their own fault. Same as women who wear skirts being raped, isn’t it, Gilad? They are like Palestinians. If you don’t want to be raped don’t wear a skirt and don’t speak arabic. Israel can’t help itself and don’t single Israel out. The situation is far worse in DRC and it is antisemitic to hold israel to a higher standard.

cliff, there is one black south african who is a hasbara spokesperson for stand with us. his schpeel has been published as an op ed over and over. i forget his name but he’s been linked to here before and when i googled him i found lots of references to him. the basic garbage is ‘i lived thru SA apartheid and you denigrate the suffering of my people when you call israel apartheid’ bla bla bla.

Israel tends to have hand picked representatives like that. One black South African to talk about real apartheid, one Lebanese who disses Hizballah, one 1948 Palestinian who says there is no discrimination, one other Levantine Arab who says the IDF is cool.

Nonsense. In both cases you have a horde of alien European invaders taking over and oppressing the native people in their own land. Furthermore, it is not incumbent upon the Palestinians to care one whit about the Jewish people. They are entitled to their land, the rights and their freedom regardless of how this affects the Jews.

Desmon Tutu and Nelson Mandala has noted that Israel’s apartheid is actually worst than S.A.

Mandala to Thomas Freedman

“The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not just an issue of military occupation and Israel is not a country that was established “normally” and happened to occupy another country in 1967. Palestinians are not struggling for a “state” but for freedom, liberation and equality, just like we were struggling for freedom in South Africa.

In the last few years, and especially during the reign of the Labour Party, Israel showed that it was not even willing to return what it occupied in 1967; that settlements remain, Jerusalem would be under exclusive Israeli sovereignty, and Palestinians would not have an independent state, but would be under Israeli economic domination with Israeli control of borders, land, air, water and sea.

Israel was not thinking of a “state” but of “separation”. The value of separation is measured in terms of the ability of Israel to keep the Jewish state Jewish, and not to have a Palestinian minority that could have the opportunity to become a majority at some time in the future. If this takes place, it would force Israel to either become a secular democratic or bi-national state, or to turn into a state of apartheid not only de facto, but also de jure.”

The Palestinians are not this innocent group of people who have sat back idly and had their rights trodden upon for no fault of their own. The opposite is true.They have been directly involved in all of the major events that have shaped the region and have contributed directly to the current impasse as they continue to ignore what it will really take for a safe and secure Israel and future for the Jewish people.

That’s an example of Nakba denial. Apply the same rationalizations to the victims of the Holocaust and you’ll see why it’s a completely unacceptable approach to wide scale and systematic massacres, persecution, or wholesale ethnic cleansing of any group. It’s hate speech.

“Many Black South Africans who have visited the area and studied the facts have come out and said that this is not apartheid. Others have said the opposite. The situation is complex and whatever it is, it is not apartheid. ”

Israelis are allowed to move into the WB. Palestinians in the WB are not allowed to move back into Israel. Israelis in the WB and Palestinians are under two sets of laws which favor the Israelis. So yeah, that’s apartheid. It’s not just an occupation.

As for the “many” who say it isn’t and the others who say it is, (and supposing there were “many”), it could be a question of degrees of empathy. Some people can only see their own suffering as truly terrible, and have a tendency to downplay the sufferings of others.

A de-facto apartheid already exists in the West Bank. Inside the borders of Israel proper, Arabs and Jews are judged by the same set of laws in the same courtrooms; across the Green Line, Jews live under Israeli civil law as well, but their Arab neighbors-people who live, in some cases, just yards away-fall under a different, and substantially undemocratic, set of laws, administered by the Israeli Army.

That’s political spin and misinformation. The situation in the occupied territory results from the application of discriminatory Israeli municipal laws too. Those laws adversely effect Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line. Let’s review the Goldstone report on that particular point once again:

Despite prohibitions under international humanitarian law (IHL), Israel has applied its domestic laws throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 1967. . . . .[T]he application of Israeli domestic laws has resulted in institutionalized discrimination against Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory to the benefit of Jewish settlers, both Israeli citizens and others. Exclusive benefits reserved for Jews derive from the two-tiered civil status under Israel’s domestic legal regime based on a “Jewish nationality,” which entitles “persons of Jewish race or descendency” to superior rights and privileges, particularly in land use, housing, development, immigration and access to natural resources, as affirmed in key legislation. Administrative procedures qualify indigenous inhabitants of the Occupied Palestinian Territory as “alien persons” and, thus, prohibited from building on, or renting, large portions of land designated by the Government of Israel as “State land” (para 206)

Yes. For example, unlike the Geneva Conventions, the mandate era Defense Emergency Regulations (1945) were incorporated into Israeli municipal law on a de jure basis by section 11 of the Government and Law Arrangements Ordinance (1948). They were used to impose a martial law regime on Israeli “Arabs” from 1948-1966, including provisions against immigration and freedom of movement; denial of choice of residence; establishment of military tribunals to try civilians without granting them the right of appeal; sweeping powers to conduct warrantless searches and seizures; prohibitions against publication of political books and newspapers; home demolitions; indefinite administrative detention; closure of specific territories; and the imposition of curfews.

The government of Israel still argues that the Defense Regulations were part of the domestic law in the Occupied Territories prior to the Israeli occupation in 1967. Its Regional Commanders have issued over 3,000 military orders under the auspices of the Regulations, including ones which specifically state that the Defense Regulations are still valid in all of the Occupied Territories.

So, even the Palestinian Supreme Court doesn’t exercise exclusive jurisdiction in areas A and B. The law that prohibits Israelis from entering those areas is an Israeli one. The Israeli High Court of Justice still exercises ultimate jurisdiction over most disputes arising there under the auspices of “The Basic Law: The Judiciary” and decides cases on the basis of Israel judge-made law and the selective application of principles found in basic laws, and legislation, like the Emergency Regulations law. In case you hadn’t noticed, none of that is Palestinian law.

Israel’s municipal laws do apply to Jews living in East Jerusalem, the Jewish enclaves in Hebron and the rest of the West Bank on a de jure basis creating a two tiered system on both sides of the Green Line where discriminatory laws, including the Emergency Regulations still target Palestinians. In addition the Israeli High Court of Justice has routinely heard cases on the legality of military orders, like the ones barring Israeli citizens from taking Palestinian passengers in their Israeli vehicles within the West Bank, & etc.

The Emergency Regulations are being applied in Areas A and B?
When? By whom?

Well for starters, the Oslo Accords did not explicitly supersede the Emergency Regulations as specifically required by Military Interpretation Orders 160 and 224 and the landmark rulings of the High Court of Justice on the issues of deportation, denial of residency, immigration, and etc.

So they are still in full force and effect. Secondly under the explicit terms of the Oslo Accords, the government of Israel retained ultimate security control over Area B. The Palestinian Authority was only granted a limited degree of civil and security control there. The IDF has either re-occupied, carried-out incursions, or conducts regular patrols in Area A, Area B, and the H1 area of Hebron.

There are no such places, except in the fevered imaginings of racist zionists (as if there were any other kind.) You might as well be talking about the Land of Oz or Middle Earth or other fantasy lands.

Since Palestine was a State in 1947, the Emergency Regulations enacted by the Mandatory are still in effect in Judea and Samaria?

Surely. In 1948 the Israeli government was challenged on the validity of using the twice-revoked Emergency Regulations. The regulations were challenged because they were a) no longer part of the laws in force that were retained under the 1948 Transition Act and b) were part of the laws that had been declared repugnant to the Jewish people. Their legal consequences, concerning expropriation of Jewish property, the deportation of Jews, & etc. had been declared null and void.

The Knesset and the Ben Gurion government responded to the challenges by adopting an amendment which stipulated that the laws promulgated in the official UK National Gazette (that had revoked the Emergency Regulations) were to be considered “unpublished laws that had no effect and never had any effect”. link to geocities.com

So in fact, a succession of Israeli governments and the High Court of Justice have gone to extraordinary lengths to revive the usage of the Emergency Regulations of 1945 in both Israel and the Occupied Territories after:
(1) they were declared offensive to the values of the Jewish people and worse in effect than the laws of the Nazi regime by the members of the Jewish Bar Association of Palestine, headed-up by the future Attorney General and Justice Minister, Jacob Shapira. – See the verbatim quote in Hanna Dib Nakkara, “Israeli Land Seizure under Various Defense and Emergency Regulations”, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 14, No. 2, Special Issue: The Palestinians in Israel and the Occupied Territories (Winter, 1985), pp. 13-34link to jstor.org;
(2) After the 1937 UK Defense Act (which empowered the High Commissioner of Palestine to promulgate the 1945 regulations in the first place) was explicitly repealed by “The Palestine (Revocations) Order-in-Council, of 1948″, published in the UK Government Gazette in London and dated effective 14 May 1948;
(3) King Abdullah issued a proclamation the day prior to the end of the Mandate declaring that the Emergency Regulations of Transjordan (1937), not the Palestine Emergency Regulations, would apply to any territory that came under the jurisdiction or control of the Arab Legion in the future;
(4) Article 9 of the Jordanian Constitution (drafted by the Palestinian people themselves) explicitly prohibited acts authorized by the Palestine Regulations, like deportation or exile from the realm. The same article said that any law or regulation to the contrary was declared null and void.

David Kretzmer provides a good overview of the dubious nature of the jurisprudence in “The Occupation of Justice”, pages 121-124, but understandably leaves out a great deal of the most interesting details. link to books.google.com

The bottom line is that the Military Interpretation Orders and the High Court of Justice decisions have ruled out the possibility that any law, regulation, constitution, or treaty can implicitly revoke the use of the Emergency Regulations of 1945 in the occupied territories. The Oslo Accords never purported to do any such thing. It requires an explicit declaration published in the national gazette in any case.

Only schizophrenics and Zionists ever suggest that the Oslo Accords have reversed the facts on the ground in Areas A and B that were established under the auspices of the Emergency Regulations. The homes and land that were expropriated for Road Plan number 50 are still expropriated, the persons who were deported are still displaced, & etc. For that matter, Elon Moreh still exists today, despite the landmark Supreme Court decision which said that it should not.

Theodor Meron is a great example of that mentality. He made a reputation for himself arguing in law journal articles that Israel has a treaty obligation to implement the humanitarian laws of occupation contained in the Hague and Geneva Conventions. At one and the same time legal advisors, like Aziz Shehedah, filed unsuccessful rebuttals to Dr. Meron’s affidavits in cases argued in the 1980s, wherein Meron advised the High Court of Justice that the conventions had not been implemented in enabling legislation and that neither the UK act of revocation nor the Jordanian Constitution satisfied the necessary legal criteria contained in the Law and Administration Ordinance or the Military Interpretation Orders. See Text of Affidavit Submitted
to the Israeli Supreme Court by Advocate Aziz Shehadeh (1980), page 69 (pdf page 71) link to alhaq.org

So it appears that Dr. Meron aided and abetted (and specifically directed his efforts) to assisting the government of Israel in carrying out the illegal deportation of Palestinians from the occupied territories in violation of Article 49(6) of the 4th Geneva Convention.

Alan Dershowitz the lawyer wrote an op-ed about your book and he calls your book one-sided. [Gross reads a Dershowitz quote] “Nor does he explain that Israel’s motivation for holding on to land it captured in a defensive war is the prevention of terrorism.

It would be more appropriate to point out to Dershowitz’s audience that the motive involved is legally irrelevant:

Article III

International criminal responsibility shall apply, irrespective of the motive involved, to individuals, members of organizations and institutions and representatives of the State, whether residing in the territory of the State in which the acts are perpetrated or in some other State, whenever they:

(a) Commit, participate in, directly incite or conspire in the commission of the acts mentioned in article II of the present Convention;

(b) Directly abet, encourage or co-operate in the commission of the crime of apartheid.

— See the “International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid” link to www1.umn.edu

It goes without saying that Dershowitz is a good criminal trial lawyer who is undoubtedly aware of the fact that the original South African apartheid policy was advertised as a very sensible effort to imprison or limit the movement of a few murders and terrorists, like Nelson Mandela. He also is aware of the fact that criminal law generally rejects the use of tu quoque arguments as a defense against prosecution.

The convention reflects the attitude that, even if those allegations had been true, they still would not excuse the collective punishment of an entire society or national ethnic group through the application of a systematic regime of crimes against humanity. Dershowitz is simply hoping that none of that dawns on his readers or listeners.

It would also be helpful to the listners to point out that Alan D. is very(to say the least) Pro-Israel, part of AIPAC and help create the pro-israeli group known as CAMARA. But than again in the U.S. somehow when Mrs. Gross qoutes or brings on Alan D. or WINEP or Saban talking heads it’s never mention they maybe bias themselves. Their always presented as objective “experts”

“And [Congressman] John Conyers says the use of the word apartheid in the title “against the Jewish people in particular, who have been the victims of the worst discrimination – resulting in death, is offensive and wrong.”

So, Conyers is saying that Jews involved in ethnic cleansing/land theft/extra judicial killings(murder) / occupation and daily war crimes through illegal expansion and running an Apartheid regime, should not be criticized or reproached.

Au Contraire, it is because of their history we should expect better from them.

Au Contraire, it is because of their history we should expect better from them.

Tempting as this line of thought is – I remember being incredibly shocked and angry when i came to understand the scale of zionist exploitation of the holocaust – we should expect no more or no less of jews than anyone else.

My pet peeve is people of good will getting derailed by totally bogus arguments.

In what sense “temporary de-facto Apartheid” is OK? Suppose that someone keeps a “de-facto” sexual slave in the basement, but “only on a temporal basis”, and is ready to free her, perhaps in few years, provided that she promises not to sue.

And as we are at it, it does not make it OK if only a minority of women in that jurisdiction are in that situation. Which is another bogus argument in circulation. And another is that the fact that being confined to the basement in no way limits a woman’s ability no negotiate with the de-facto owner.

What I am trying to say is that the arguments can be bogus by being irrelevant, false or both. The most popular arguments that white wash Israeli Apartheid are surely irrelevant, and perhaps also false.

Well, Apartheid in South Africa was temporary and provisional, as well. At lasted only as long as a white supremacist ideology ran the country. When the Levant is not run by equally evil people spouting a Judeo-supremacist ideology, the zio’s Apartheid will end, too.

So Goldberg is correct, after a fashion, but not in the way he intends.

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